The Disremembering
by infinitelyrichandbeautiful
Summary: What Finnick Odair unlearns about sex.


**_i. Sex is a performance. _**

Finnick Odair has fucked five times the amount of people he has fingers, and can find his way around sex with the lights off and one hand behind his back. Which he has done.

Over the years, he's learnt how to cater personally for the clients he sees regularly. Gossammer Glint, for instance, likes him when he's got his wrists tied to the bedpost above his head. He decorates Penn Dillager with constellations of hickeys across her stomach. Caesar Flickerman likes being called _sweetheart_, and pays extra when Finnick swallows.

But the first time he fucks Jo, it makes him kind of nervous, because she hasn't sent in a form requesting anything special. He literally has no idea if she'd prefer if he kept his shirt on, or if she wants to keep her own clothes on, or, like, _how_ to do this.

As it turns out, it doesn't matter. When he slips his hand in her underwear, she breathes directions against his neck, and her moan as she finishes with an arch of her back and his skin under her nails, makes him feel weirdly proud.

**_ii. Sex is forced. _**

Before Johanna, Finnick's sex life did not belong to him. He lost his virginity when he was fourteen in some penthouse suite, and came back smelling like perfume and roses. Sex was something he did to keep the people he loved alive. When it came down to it sometimes, he wondered why people even did it at all. It wasn't like it was _enjoyable_.

But Jo is different. He _chooses_ Jo. And he didn't really think that it could make such a difference, but it does. He _likes_ it. He likes _her_.

And he _loves_ the rebellion of it.

It makes him smile, when he's dressing himself and Jo is sweeping her hair into a messy bun at the nape of her neck. He looks down at his bare chest and sees the marks blossoming in her wake; thin, red lines marring his skin (oh, God, he cannot _wait_ to see the looks on his Prep Team's faces); light purple shadows cradling his hips. Usually, he minds when he's marked like this, because they feel like battle scars more than anything else, but right now, they feel like freedom. They're a fuck-you to the Capitol, from both him and Jo, because right under Snow's nose (literally; it happens in an unused study in the midst of Jo's Victory Tour party), Finnick Odair is having consensual sex and making choices and _you do not own him_.

**_iii. Sex is one-sided._**

Fun fact: Finnick has never been sucked off until Annie. Clients pay for _him_ to pleasure _them_, and to be honest, he's glad. He kind of hates himself for gleaming any sort of enjoyment out of his appointments as it is.

Jo calls him out on it; she's that type of person. They're tangled between the sheets of her bedroom in the Training Centre, and she kisses his neck, collarbone, chest, stomach, hip—

"Jo."

It's just her name, but it makes her stop. "What?"

For some reason, the beat in his rib cage has picked up, and he feels a little hollow. "Don't."

She looks confused, and rightfully so, he guesses. "Are you sure?"

He nods, and she crawls back up. "You _never_ want me to blow you." It's not a complaint or anything: just a small observation in her strangely gentle tone.

"I—" he pauses. Sighs. "It's stupid. It's hard to explain." He's not sure how to say that it's the _one thing_ that he hasn't ever done. That it kind of feels like his de facto virginity.

Jo doesn't question it, and he's thankful.

But when Annie kneels before him, on the rooftop, he has to swallow his moan and shut his eyes.

To his disappointment, she stops, pulling away. "Did I do it wrong?"

Her eyes are large, and he realises, for the first time,_ holy shit, this girl loves me._ And it's a whole new feeling, one that explodes in his chest and lightens his bones; he can only shake his head. "No," he whispers, the words sticking to the back of his throat. "You did everything right."

**_iv. Sex is a necessity._**

Nearly every single romantic encounter listed on Finnick's repertoire ends in sex.

When Annie is released from the District Thirteen hospital, and he shouts himself hoarse for them to let her move in with him, his first instinct is to lay her down and settle himself between her thighs.

When he tries, she puts a hand on his shoulder. She's pale and there's something about her that still, still, still, makes him feel like she's drowning.

"Is it okay?" she asks. "If we don't, tonight?"

He wants to kick himself. _Is this okay_? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? _Of course_ it's okay. _Of course,_ because she's just come back from the Capitol with nothing but a sheet wrapped around her and he's one hundred per cent certain that she was sold (raped; they raped her; they raped her; they sold her and raped her and it's his fault) even though they've never spoken about it.

He grazes her temple with his lips. "You never," he murmurs, "need to be afraid of me."

She nods against him.

**_v. Sex is for the evil._**

This is one of the hardest to unlearn.

See, the thing is, is that for a long time, Finnick believed that love and sex were mutually exclusive. Loving someone did not in any way entail… _that_, and so the first time he sees Annie Cresta naked—by accident, because she's changing and he doesn't meant to look—he fucking _hates_ himself. If he ever needed final assurance that he was all Capitol, this is it; only all those hours in sex-stained sheets would _ever_ make him think about touching Annie in the way he touched them. Those touches, those kisses—they're meant solely for anyone with enough money to shove up Snow's ass. Not bronze Annie Cresta, with her long hair and bracelets. She doesn't deserve that.

Jo fucks this theory up a little, because there's no vulgarity with her. No whips or hot wax or anything that makes him catch his _ouch_ between his teeth. Sex with Jo… _is_.

And he tries to imagine fucking Annie like that. He tries to figure if Annie would like it if he tucked his head between her legs, if she'd wrap her legs around his waist as he pushed his hips into her, the sweet whisper of her breath on his cheek, moaning in his ear—

When he gets to that point, he has to close his eyes and put his head in his hands, because _obviously _that would not be the case. He and Jo are Victors: they're twisted and sadistic by default. Annie is neither of those things. Annie is beautiful.

But they stand on that rooftop the night before her Games (she keeps saying it's her _last night_ and it makes him _sick_) and she says, "I'm not going to die a virgin; I want you, Finn; I _love_ you, Finn" and everything he knows is tipped upside down.

And even though everything inside him is screaming _no, you don't understand, I will _hurt_ you, I do not know how to touch people like you, I do not understand how to make love_, he whispers, "all right."

As it turns out, he actually _does _know how to make love. Afterwards, when he's half asleep, and she's all moonlight and skin on his skin, he entertains the possibility that Finnick Odair does not know half as much about sex as he previously thought.


End file.
